


Unfinished Ghost Spider stuff

by GalekhXigisi



Series: A Wolf and a Bird adopt a Spider (and other mcu stories like that) [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: F/M, Hydra Peter Parker, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, M/M, Multi, Peter Parker is Bucky Barnes's Biological Child, Peter Parker is Steve Roger's Biological Child, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Trans Bucky Barnes, Trans Peter Parker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:21:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23105404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalekhXigisi/pseuds/GalekhXigisi
Summary: Peter Parker doesn't remember, but Bucky Barnes progressively does.aka that one oneshot where Peter is Bucky's kid, has gone through getting frozen a time or two, and there's PTSD and fear.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers/Sam Wilson, Michelle Jones/Ned Leeds/Peter Parker
Series: A Wolf and a Bird adopt a Spider (and other mcu stories like that) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1660729
Comments: 2
Kudos: 226





	Unfinished Ghost Spider stuff

**Author's Note:**

> Peter comes back after the second snap (Endgame kind of compliant, Civil War compliant), Bucky and Sam are together 
> 
> (also Sam and Bucky live right beside Carol, Valkyrie, and Maria. C/V/M are dating, too, because I said so)
> 
> I don't remember all the triggers, so I'm going to attempt to tell what I know is there  
> Injury, blood, PTSD, genital mutilation, body mutilation, self-harm (implied/mentioned), terror, nightmares (I think), disassociation, torture, murder, I really can't think of anything else or what in the fuck I thought when I wrote this.

The Spiderling is cold. He’s always cold, nowadays, but that’s alright. It’s always been alright. And he doesn’t mind it, at all, as the ice clears and the warmth slowly starts to overtake his body. He thinks he was hibernating, he’s not sure, but it’s not as if he minds. His body doesn’t age when he hybernates. It falters, falling into a comatose state. One singular breathe could take days to fully cycle, heartbeat so slow it’s barely even there, to begin with, all signs of life falling dormant until warmth awoke their body once more. 

And that’s how the Spiderling awakes, cold and slow, but so alert, ready to pounce at any and all noises. He’s not sure where he is, but he thinks, so  _ vaguely, _ that it must be some abandoned sort of place, given that the lights are out and there’s the thick scent of dust. He’s used to the scent. He has to be used to  _ every _ scent, after all, so he doesn’t cough, nor does he react, eyes scanning around the area, searching for anything. His ears prick and his body slowly starts to awaken, picking up more and more as it goes. 

There’s just dust. No noises from anything alive, just the soft hissing of one of many machines, shutting off, no more power left in them as they take their final sparks of life within their own mechanical hands, dying without a feeling left to them. 

The Spiderling finds himself wishing he could be dying like those machines, not feeling a thing. But he doesn’t get that relief, a metallic leg slamming into the metal cage of a thing he’d been forced into what felt like moments ago. He’s not sure that it’s actually moments ago, though, given that what little of the place he remembered was positively buzzing with activity, countless soldiers like himself being told what to do, forced to do things, albeit all of them so much older than him and not forced into the iced box he was currently falling out of. 

His limbs prickle at the cold that finds itself instilled in his bones, so very prominent that he shivers and just barely avoids falling to the ground. But the metal limb branded with a red star on his thigh gets planted and he finds himself standing tall and straight, almost as if it were instinct to do so. He knows, vaguely so, that anything from here on out is instinct beaten into him, though he can’t remember who had trained him, why he was there or, really, anything about himself other than that the red star on his left was a branding of its own, whether it be for the young soldier or not. 

-

Sam sighs as his eyes scan over Bucky, who’s writing down something, scrawled on lined paper with a green pen. He’s writing quickly, not pressing hard enough to leave too much of an indent, just hard enough for it to scratch the paper and mark it up. He’s still remembering things, slowly. After Shuri had dissected the worst of his mind and done whatever she could (which had  _ significantly _ helped him), there wasn’t all that much stopping him from remembering things outside of his own brain doing whatever it can to not only unlock the memories, but also withhold them at the same time. 

Bucky writes them down whenever they strike, no matter what’s going on. He could be in the middle of a sentence before suddenly stopping to write something, somewhere official and important, macking on Sam. None of it mattered, he still ended up pausing whatever was happening to write whatever he could down. He had journals and little notepads spread along their shared bedroom, thrown into order as he tried to remember things. Details got added daily, even if it was just little things like the positioning of things or hairs in someone’s face or literally  _ anything. _ Without Steve there to confirm most of it, Sam found himself doing his best to help however he could. And Bucky would smile, wide and happy when he finally put a scene together, like a ball game he went to with Steve or his technically  _ first _ meeting with Fury, albeit that one was short and minor. They celebrated all the same. 

He looks focused now, writing a lot in the journal that he mostly uses for small things, quick and there, but the more he seems to write, the more he seems to remember. Sam doesn’t dare interrupt, just walking over to sit beside him, reading over the page. He’s not fluent in Russian, not entirely, but he catches a few words like  _ child, girl, _ and  _ blood. _ He even sees the word  _ spider _ scrawled in there, though the sentences are merely a few words each, never finished, never a full thought, just whatever the man seemed to remember in his haste to write down what his brain supplied him with. 

He writes for a full thirty minutes, which was never surprising, given how many times he had already had moments of spewed information that simply never seemed to stop until he cleared his head. The longest he had ever gone was a solid seven hours, forty-two minutes, and twelve seconds, which consisted of him writing digitally while Shuri stared from the other side of a screen, listening and watching as he fixated on his own. Sam had to get Bucky to eat and sleep after that, given that he spent all that time aggressively writing in too-small font, standing, filling what would have been books upon books of information if not for the fact that Shuri had him record it on one of her many screens. That had been how they’d put the baseball game together, as well as a few others. 

When he finally stops, he pauses to stare at the twelve pages he’s easily filled with so many words. At one point, Sam had passed him a blue pen, green out of ink, so now the two colors sat together, overlapping in places, not that he minds. Sam had even gotten him a drink at one point. The coffee sat warm still, the warmth enveloping his hand when he finally grips at the cup, turning warmth through his body as he drinks. 

“You wrote a lot,” Sam mutters softly, leaning over the man’s shoulder to peer at the papers, obviously scanning for whatever he can recognize. “Something about a kid?” 

Bucky merely nods at that, his own eyes scanning the paper that glares back at him. He’s sure Sam can read the listed  _ Winter Spider _ dotting the end of the pages, blue ink thick and pressed hard. 

The younger man turns towards the older, scanning his face for a moment before repeating, “Winter Spider?” He raises a brow. “I’ll take it not a friend?” 

“I don’t know,” he hums, taking another drink. “It’s a kid. I don’t even know if they’re alive right now.” 

Sam only give an acknowledging little hum back at that, nodding. “Okay,” he says as he straightens himself. Bucky turns towards him. Only then does he notice the coffee mug in his hand, black with an assortment of gold stars over it. “How about I order us something to eat while you put on whatever show you can find? When we’re done with the show, we’ll go see if we can find out the timeline for this. Does that sound alright?” 

Bucky smiles and gives a little sigh, heaving himself up as he confirms it. “Yeah,” is all he returns with, pressing a kiss to Sam’s cheek as he leaves the kitchen. They’ll get their answers, albeit slowly. 

-

The injuries aren’t that prominent, really. At least, he doesn’t think they are, though he  _ is _ sowing his own flesh with a needle he found and his own webbing produced from the little spinnerets on his wrists. The needle had been clean, he’s sure, given that it was in one of the many closed up, singular use packs he had found after digging around for a while. There’s a gash in his right thigh that he mostly used his own webbing to practically tape up, an assortment of bruises and cuts that were nothing more than minor injuries, and a few large cuts along his right arm that looked like a lion had scratched him more than anything. He silently wonders if he had done it himself, given the blood staining his fingertips and the fresh look they still hold even now.

He’s been there for hours, awake and stirring, taking in everything and accessing his situation. Within the midst of the large operation, he’s found the power to be cut, long gone for who knows how long. There’s a medical room that he’s in now, filled to the brim with medical supplies and even some food rations, enough to get the boy along for a few weeks if he ignores the hunger pains in his stomach while also maintaining as much muscle as he can. And he’s prepared to. He knows he’s done it before. 

He supposes, for now, he can just do that, live with whatever is there. And even if he doesn’t ignore those pains and eats without fear of the outside or punishment, he’s sure he can be alone for two weeks before he even has to consider stepping foot outside. 

The Spiderling decides that in the dark, alone, might just be the best place for a spider, for the time being. At least until he understands, he thinks. 

-

“So, the idea of this spider kid came up when you first got decked by God,” Sam says as he writes down things on paper, leaving the page fairly blank while Bucky writes it on the little iPad sort of device Shuri had taught him to use, keeping a digital copy. 

Bucky nods. “That’s when I first felt it,” he says. He sits on the bed, legs folding beneath him as he holds the stylus in his hand. His mug of coffee had been discarded and changed to water, now sitting on the nightstand beside their bed, ice cracking. “Not sure when it really started, honestly, but I know it’s along there.” 

“Okay, but the kid their self didn’t pop up until about the sixties?” 

Bucky nods. He wasn’t awake then, but those few pages he had seen in the Winter Spider’s pages, all those confirmed kills by the time they were only ten. “And they had something to do with Maria and Howard’s deaths, too.” 

Sam flips through a few pages, softly asking, “Do you at least somewhat have an idea of what?” 

The older turns towards his previous journal, skimming over the pages for a moment before nodding, more to himself than Captain America. “Yeah, clean up, disposal. I think they helped in the murder.” 

“Didn’t you see what happened to them before your big fight with Steve and Tony?” 

Bucky vaguely points the stylus in his direction, focused on the book. “Yeah, and there was a fourth person offscreen that rook out the cameras after I pulled Howard out of the car. Everything beyond that is still pretty bleak.” At one point, that knowledge Bucky had at his disposal constantly. Now, though, it’s buried beneath trauma, discarded. Shuri and T’Challa both had warned him that that may happen, that memories he thought he knew may go missing. And he was fine with that, even now. He may not have known the end effects, but he knew names and faces, the ones that mattered, the ones that he  _ took out. _

Sam still writes it down anyway. “Okay, so we got a spider kid that could have totally eaten Tony’s parents after they died,  _ great.” _

“I doubt Peter ate them.” The super soldier smiles affectionately as he writes.

“Peter?” Sam turns on his heel, brow raised as Bucky. “You remembered his name?” 

The older pauses for a moment, eyes directed at the ceiling as he thinks it out for a moment before finally falling back down. He nods, softly supplying, “Yeah, I guess I did. Peter. He’s got a lot of other names, too.” 

“Like?” 

The man turns the iPad, showing off the list he’s comprised. 

“Ghost Spider? White Spider?  _ Night Monkey?” _ He raises a brow. “How the fuck did you get Night Monkey?’ 

Bucky shrugs with a snort. 

-

The Spider knows his mission. He wasn’t given it now, no, but he knows it, knows that it’s his own. He remembers the screaming, the fighting, the twins and their pathetic looks centered on him. Realistically, he had only seen the twins twice, he’s sure, but he knows they’re both important, somehow. Despite that, neither is his target. 

His target is more than one, four different ones to cross off the list. The names were cut into his side, not by his own choice. It had been done years ago, so long ago that it was merely a distant memory of a man he knew to be his carrier carving it there so he could never forget. Toomes had a habit of doing that, each and every single one of his marks carved into his skin in one place or another. 

_ Natasha Romanoff, Steven Rogers, James Barnes, Sam Wilson. _

He’s not sure if the order is important or who they are, but he knows they have to be taken out soon. If they aren’t, the Spider has no idea how long he’ll be allowed to live. Given that no one has come for him yet, he guesses that, realistically, it can’t be that much longer. 

The Spider crawls through the city without getting detected. 

-

Bucky hasn’t remembered much within the three weeks since he’s first remembered anything about Peter. He thought there wasn’t much to remember, given that they probably hadn’t interacted much, but he was wrong. And, really, that didn’t hit him until he was watching one of those many movie suggestions he’d collected from the other Avengers and whoever else was a part of the team that decided to help him get up to date on pop culture and whatever else. 

_ Glee _ had been important, apparently. It was one of Pepper’s suggestions. She had said it was practically a rite of passage or something, which Bucky didn’t exactly understand. It wasn’t until the blonde girl that Bucky could never remember the name of was giving birth that any memories hit him. And this one slammed into him like a freight train  _ (he would know), _ earning his hands tugging through his hair and breathing to quicken within seconds, so alarming that he would have thought he was Steve, getting through one of his many asthma attacks. But it’s not an asthma attack that can be curled by an expensive inhaler. No, it’s a panic attack spurred on from trauma and pain and  _ blood. _

Sam practically throws the remote trying the pause the show, and the same with the pen and notepad when he tells the other to hand him one of each. Sam holds him tight as he forces himself to calm down, running his hands through his hair, scratching at his scalp in a soothing motion, whispering soft reassurances, doing whatever it is he can to calm his lover. It works, works well enough that Bucky manages to only have tears falling down his cheeks by the time he’s on the back of his second page, sniffling and taking in whatever warmth Sam’s providing. His wings had wrapped around them at some point, warm feathers helping ground him even more. Sam’s cautious, so aware of avoiding wrapping them enough that it would make the older claustrophobic. He leaves his wings slightly parted, though Bucky knows they could easily encase the two of them just fine. He leaves an exit and Bucky adores him for it. 

The pages get filled and they find themselves in bed, both exhausted from the day, both mentally and physically. They’re drained and it makes for wonderful sleep when they both pass out, entirely dreamless. 

The topic doesn’t come up until morning, when the two are wide awake and have had breakfast and done their morning routines. And Bucky tells of his memories, whispering of the birth of the child, happening after he had fallen from the train. No sport of pain killers, a butchered fix that ended up requiring another two rounds of surgeries that Bucky had an assortment of scars from that he always thought came from whatever other shit Hydra had done to him within the time he had been with them. They tested without anesthetic on any and all, and Bucky’s sure that the Spider was no exception, taken away and forced to be frozen near instantly, not even trying to see if the child was alive then. 

_ (The Spider had been, Bucky’s sure, because he remembers the wailing that shattered glass.) _

He only tells what he can, what he already knows. He knows about the threats to Peter that were often  _ We’ll test on your little girl _ and  _ she’s getting deployed for another kill soon. _ But he knows that they changed to threats about his  _ boy, _ which had meant Peter had seen the same painfully butchered chest surgery Bucky had gotten, leaving thick scars that could have so easily been avoided. And he wonders if Peter had experienced the same sort of cruel surgery to his womb as his father had. That thought makes Bucky fall apart. 

-

The Spider finds himself bored of the typical daily routine he’s found himself under. He’d rented an apartment, which really was a feat at his age, given that he was merely fourteen, but the landlord was shady enough and the Spider didn’t mind showing a little more skin to get by. He’d had to do worse, so this was nothing. He doesn’t mind, he has to repeat to himself, but he thinks, vaguely, that he very much does. But that thought gets trampled as he remembers that he now has a place to stay which, really, is all that matters right now. 

He eats, he steals, he buys, he takes offhand jobs, he runs errands, he does research, he does what he has to. And to so many, he’s invisible. And that’s how he likes it. 

But it’s boring. It’s nothing more than doing what he has to to get by and live. He now knows that two of his charges are dead, sure, but that doesn’t eliminate that two names still exist. And when he considers  _ “going rogue” _ and not doing them, well, the impending fear of what  _ The Vulture _ could do to him makes the boy freeze up and cry. He pretends, though, that he doesn’t, and continues on with whatever it is he’d like to. 

To only a few people in the world is he more than a boy getting by. And to everyone else, he’s a ghost of a face you’ll see on the street and in the background of your dreams, but never again. 

Fear, still, sets deep in his bones. 

He gathers what he needs and wishes he didn’t have to. 

-

Four months and three weeks it had been since Bucky had remembered anything. Within that time, he had pieced together a lot. How was he supposed to know that Peter was a byproduct of himself and Steve? Sure, after having been together for years up until they got drafted, they had  _ done things. _ They had had their assortment of flings and whatever else given that Bucky was far more likely to be an escort for lesbian couples than he was to actually attempt to score any. But one of those flings had ended in a child and Bucky knew exactly which one resulted in the boy. 

He had also found that Peter had done a  _ lot  _ of his own cases. Sharon had aided in helping however she could, though there wasn’t much outside of rumors and offhanded notes and injuries. None of it was ever concrete and the blonde was surprised when her brunette friend easily confirmed that not only was the Spider real, he was, quite possibly, somewhere in the world now, as was. 

Unfortunately, with her digging into the files and whatever else she can, she finds a lot more than she was hoping for. She finds cold cases with webbing attached to corpses and a Hydra base discovered two weeks ago that was found empty but recently disturbed. She finds traces of blood with now matches and results that make her frown when she has to present the information to her friends. 

There are no pictures of a face, just a boy in a dark suit with a utility belt around his waist, a gun and knife for each hip, and nails long enough to certainly pluck someone’s eye out with ease. 

-

The Ghost Spider scans the papers, eyes welled with tears. He’s read a lot about his targets, but this is  _ different. _ This tells of trauma, of the name  _ James “Bucky” Barnes, _ recounting the story of the man dubbed  _ The Winter Soldier, _ who broke free of Hydra’s accord and made a life for himself with no remorse for those who had any say against it. He holds a hand to his mouth as he sobs, not that they aren’t already silent. 

He wants to break away, no matter what. Hydra was supposedly falling apart more and more as time went by. It was 2024, the article published in 2018. It was someone’s graduating final project, one of many published articles that had awards given to them, something about  _ Young Authors _ or whatever with pictures to it and everything. He pulls at his hair and cries and screams into his pillows. 

He’s terrified. He’s fucking  _ terrified. _ He was considering running from Hydra. Hydra, who had easily turned a handful of random people into  _ literal super soldiers, _ who had genetically turned Peter into an odd super spider, who had infiltrated  _ SHIELD, _ who had killed so many and took no mercy. 

Despite the Spider’s terror, he decides that he’ll try it, no matter the cost. He sobs and every single noise puts him on edge every second of the day, but he’s not there to be someone’s pet, no, he’s partially human and no human should  _ ever _ be a pet. Or, at least, that’s what most of the stuff Spider’s read has said, and Spider really likes that little sentiment, even if it terrifies him to the very core. 

He moves to Queens, gets a new apartment, steals money out of bank accounts of large companies that, as far as the Spider can tell, don’t help benefit  _ shit _ outside of their own pockets. He makes himself a new alias as  _ Peter Benjamin Parker _ and signs up for school. If anyone asks what’s happened to his family, he says they passed during the  _ Blip, _ which Peter only recently found and decided it was a nice little excuse. 

He makes friends. There’s a boy named Ned. He’s soft and teaches Peter about pop culture, watching movies with him at Ned’s house  _ (because Peter isn’t yet ready to have someone over) _ and they build things with Legos that Peter finds himself entranced with. And there’s MJ, who’s teaching him about feminism and how to be a decent human being. She teaches him the social cues he doesn’t understand and they end up sitting in her room in silence for hours. And on Fridays, they all hang out, even stay the night with each other. They don’t ask about the metal limb or the scars that run up his body and they’re fine when Peter doesn’t talk for hours, sitting silently, listening, taking in Ned’s spewing of his hyper fixations and MJ’s snarky commentary. They fit perfectly together. 

And things are  _ great. _ They’re fucking  _ awesome, _ even as the cold rolls in and Peter spends more time with the two because being alone reminds him of memories and the cold makes him panic while also making him want to hibernate. It seriously is  _ amazing. _ That is, until the day that a girl named  _ Liz _ shows up. 

Peter talks to her once, smiles and waves, keeps his distance because she’s new and he remembered being new and overwhelmed by everything. But when he’s about to walk home with Ned and MJ, he sees the girl get into a car with a man that makes Peter’s heart drop and shatter on the concrete ground. 

_ Toomes, _ his mind whispers, his carrier there and in the flesh. His throat tightens and he falls still, deathly silent and pale, facing his friends with his back turned towards the car. Toomes hadn’t seen him, he’s absolutely  _ certain, _ but it doesn’t stop his eyes from watering and terror from setting in deep in his heart. His fight or flight instincts have set in entirely. His friends asked, worried about him. They’ve seen a few times he’s been triggered by things, like a loud noise once when MJ’s dad’s cat had knocked over a glass and Peter had pulled out a knife without hesitation. They’ve dealt with his triggers and panic attacks. This time, he doesn’t pull a knife on anyone, just staying silent, forcing down everything. He blows the two off, despite it being Friday, the three supposed to stay at Ned’s and watch a show called  _ Stranger Things _ that Peter didn’t understand but heard was rather popular. 

As soon as he gets home, he tears through the apartment, gathering what little possessions he has, throwing them into bags and getting ready to burn whatever isn’t essential. He’s ready to cut ties and run. 

Despite all of that, he falters, staring at the pictures on his walls, hung up and pinned with thumbtacks and tape. MJ’s select smiles, Ned’s creations, the two together, the three on their unofficial “date nights”, as Ned called them, and a collection of other photos. But her falters at the article he’d found so long ago, the one about the former Winter Solider with his achievement. 

He lays in bed, holding tight to his blanket. He sobs into the thing and prays he doesn’t have to leave. 

-

Sam’s unofficial off days are Saturdays, really. He’d never admit it, but he always thought of them as his off days. Sure, he could be called in as Captain America at any possible moment, but that was rare and Fury knew he liked to keep Saturdays off the metaphorical villain’s menu. And Bucky was the same, who slept in on Saturdays but would make breakfast every other day. He was the parental friend, as much as he hated to admit it, and Sam knew that. 

But, as it appears, the universe has other plans because a young boy is knocking on his door, which is odd, given that he and Bucky live in the middle of fucking  _ nowhere, _ neighbors to Captain Marvel and her family. Then again, if there were to be any trouble, the blonde woman was  _ just _ a yell away, and he is very aware that her wives are also  _ very _ skilled when it comes to combat, so he’s not all that worried. 

The kid’s pretty short, as well as skinny. Despite that, he’s muscular, something clear even from the clothes that swamp his form. He looks nervous, too. His hands are flexing and his breathing is ragged. Hell, he’s even hunched over, brown curls just short enough not to fall down into his Bambi-like eyes. He looks…  _ Terrified, _ Sam realizes. 

“Hey, kid,” he says softly, “What’s wrong? You okay?” 

The kid flinches at that. His eyes had been scanning Carol’s home, but they frantically flickered over to Sam’s face. Good  _ God, _ he’s sure this kid is fucking  _ freezing, _ what with the snow and all. “Sorry to bother you, but, uhm, i - is mister, um, Bucky Barnes here, sir?” 

Sam thinks the kid might cry at the drop of a pen, especially with how much he keeps glancing at the neighbor’s house. But Bucky calls from his spot on the couch, asking, “Who’s at the door, Sam?” 

“S’a kid,” he yells back, though he moves aside. “C’mon, kid, you must be freezing out there.” 

The kid doesn’t hesitate to walk inside, immediately shaking in what Sam can only describe as a dog-like action. Snow falls from the yellow jacket he has over his hoodie, dropping onto the floor as he wipes his feet. He’s tentatively looking all over the room but it’s painfully clear he’s trying to look as submissive and as the least bit of a threat as he possibly can. And Sam is pretty sure he looks like nothing more than a terrified child, small despite that fact that he is, most certainly, not. 

“Sam-” 

Bucky halts from where he stood, eyes wide as he looks from the opening of the doorway to the kid in the doorway. Sam had shut the door, though he wonders if that was a good idea, now, given that the two there both look like they want to fucking bolt. 

The kid lets out a broken noise as he whimpers, “Y - You’re my  _ dad,” _ though it sounds painful. “I remember that - at.” 

Bucky nods, smiling. “Hi, Pete,” he mutters, which has the kid showing an assortment of emotions, which Sam can feel himself going through, too. “S’been a while.” 

“How’d you do it,” the kid -  _ Peter, _ Sam’s mind supplies - whimpers, his expression so broken that it looks like it physically hurt. “How’d you get awa - aw - away?” 

It becomes painfully evident at that very second that the kid is holding back tears, and Sam doesn’t blame him. But he knows he needs to step in, whether it be merely to comfort them or to lower the emotions filtering around the group. “Hey, come on, you two? Let’s get sat down before we get to the big discussions, okay?” he sort of feels like he’s intruding, to be honest, but he knows, very much so, that emotions were a bitch and Bucky was a very emotional person, no matter what anyone said. With that being said, Sam knew he had to be sitting down to process stuff. Sam wasn’t too much different. That was how they got along. 

  
  


By the time they’re moves to the kitchen table, things have calmed significantly for all three of them. Sam had even gotten some tea for the boy, who had his legs fold beneath himself, eyes turned towards the cup, watching the liquid. Bucky’s looking at the boy, just as intense and as brooding as he ever fucking is, which Sam doesn’t think is helping, given their situation at the moment, but Peter doesn’t seem to mind all that much, taking a sip of the warm liquid and holding it close to his chest for a moment before turning to tuck his knees to his chest instead, cup on his kneecaps as his eyes scan the two adults. 

“They said you betrayed everyone,” Peter whispers after a moment, “and Toomes said you two were my next marks.” 

Bucky flinches at hearing that, but Sam is quicker to respond a muttered,  _ “Shit.” _

The kid nods. “I… I thought I could escape or something like you did.” He has a smile on his lips but it looks so bitter as he turns his attention back to the amber liquid in his cup. “After the blip, when I came back, the Hydra base I was at lost all its power. I was the only one there and… I got out and all I remembered was being shoved in there in two thousand twelve.” He falters for a moment before pulling up the right side of his shirt, the side that’s on Bucky’s own side, Sam to his left. The man blanches. “Toomes liked to… carve my marks into my skin. You two, Natasha Romanoff, Steve Rogers… You four were my last marks.” 

Once he drops his shirt, Sam decides simply by Bucky’s reaction that, for the moment, he doesn’t want to see it. 

“I don’t…  _ want _ to do that anymore.” His hands grip tightly at the cup. “I got out-  _ thought _ I got out!” The momentary explosion of emotion is jarring, to say the least, the boy’s brows knitting and anger there for a split second before it all disappears to defeat. “I went to school, had two best friends that I kind of really like, got into a schedule that words, made do, got by on white-hat hacking and blatant theft at some point, but… Toomes found me, I think.” 

“You think,” Bucky repeats with a raised brow. 

“I’m not sure!” comes the whimpered reply, full of emotion. “His daughter, Liz, she just transferred yesterday and she got to school and we talked and then she was leaving and I  _ saw him _ and he was  _ in the car _ and they were talking and he’s her dad and-” 

“Peter, you’ve gotta breathe,” Sam interrupts, frowning at the kid whose eyes tentatively flicker to the adult’s face. “Breathe, okay? We’ve got time to talk, there’s nothing to be worried about right now. You’re safe here.” 

He whimpers, eyes shut tight as he nods. His lips clasp tightly, the boy taking a moment to just  _ breathe, _ to exist. And the adults patiently waist it out. Neither touch him, nor say a word, just letting him do what he needs to calm down, both unsure of how to help him. He doesn’t exactly seem to need their help, anyway, taking his couple of moments to steady his breathing, once again falling back to staring at his cup. The bags under his eyes just accent all the worry there. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> This is unfinished and I highly doubt I'll write any more for it because it's hard and I feel bad about this oneshot 
> 
> Here's my Discord server!  
> https://discord.gg/eGkwayy


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